São Paulo – The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) aims to triple the number of people it supports in Sudan from the current 2.5 million to 7 million. On Thursday (30), the UN agency said it is equipped to support this number of people, but due to the conflict, it is unable to reach all areas of the country.
“We have made significant breakthroughs in getting aid deliveries to hard-to-reach areas in the last three months, but these cannot be one-off events,” said Alex Marianelli, acting Country Director for Sudan. “We urgently need to get a constant flow of aid to families in the hardest hit locations, which have also been the most difficult to reach.”
As an example of this difficulty, the WFP cited a convoy headed to areas already in famine, or at-risk of famine, in Darfur, that took three times longer to reach its destination due to stoppages imposed by groups involved in the conflict.
On the other hand, the WFP said recent efforts by Sudan’s Central Bank and Ministry of Finance to ease the crisis, and increase cash availability, will mean that WFP’s operations can gradually resume some of its projects of providing cash and food to Sudanese people.
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Translated by Guilherme Miranda